Literature

Review
Dr. Eng. Khairy Elsayed
Faculty of engineering-Mattaria
Mechanical Power Engineering Department
Thanks to

Prof. Dr. Khalid Mahmood, Department of Library and

Information Science, University of the Punjab.

About the Lecturer

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What is LR?
A literature review discusses published
information in a particular subject area
within a certain time period.
A literature review can be just a simple
summary of the sources, but it usually
has an organizational pattern and
combines both summary and synthesis.
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What is LR?
A summary is a recap of the important
information of the source, but a synthesis is a
re-organization, or a reshuffling (rearrange),
of that information.
It traces the intellectual progression of
the field, including major debates.

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What is LR?
A review is a preface to and rationale for
engaging in primary research.
A review is a required part of grant and research
proposals and often a chapter in MSc theses and
PhD dissertations.
Generally, the purpose of a review is to analyze
critically a segment of a published body of
knowledge through summary, classification, and
comparison of prior research studies, reviews of
literature, and theoretical articles.

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You should answer

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How Many Documents to a Review?

Whenever you make a copy of any paper, make sure that you get
the full citation
Read Every Document With a Pen and a Highlighter
Read All the Important Documents Twice

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Structure of review articles

Literature reviews are in reality a type
of research
Should conform to the anatomy of a
typical scholarly article
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
Conclusion
References

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Structure of literature review

Introduction
Gives a quick idea of the topic of the literature review,
such as the central theme or organizational pattern.

Body
Contains your discussion of sources.

Conclusions/Recommendations
Discuss what you have drawn from reviewing
literature so far. Where might the discussion proceed?
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Organization of literature review

A general organization looks like a funnel
Broader topics
Subtopics
Studies like yours

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How to organize studies

Chronological
By publication date
By trend

Thematic
A structure which considers different themes

Methodological
Focuses on the methods of the researcher, e.g.,
qualitative versus quantitative approaches

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Making links between studies

Agreements
Similarly, author B points to
Likewise, author C makes the case that
Author D also makes this point
Again, it is possible to see how author E agrees with
author D
Disagreements
However, author B points to
On the other hand, author C makes the case that
Conversely, Author D argues
Nevertheless, what author E suggests

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Summary table

It is useful to prepare.
Such a table provides a quick overview that
allows the reviewer to make sense of a large
mass of information.
The tables could include columns with
headings such as

Author
type of study
Sample
Design
data collection approach
key findings

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Atmospherics in service environments

Summary table of literature

Citation

Sample

Environment

Method

Conclusions

Colour
Bellizzi, Crowley
and Hasty (1983)

125 Adults

Furniture
store

Laboratory
experiment
Photographic
s l i d e
simulations

Warm and cool colours created different emotional

responses. Customers view red retail environments
as more negative and unpleasant than blue.

Bellizzi, & Hite

(1992)

70 Adult
women
107 Students

Te l e v i s i o n s
shown with
different
c o l o u r
backgrounds
Furniture
stores

Laboratory
experiments
Photographic
s l i d e
simulations

Study based on PAD affect measures and approachavoidance behaviours.

More positive retail outcomes occurred in blue
environments than red.

Smith and Curnow

(1966)

1100
Supermarket
shoppers

Retail store

Field
experiment

Time in store reduced with loud music but level of

sales did not.

Milliman (1982)

216 Shoppers

Supermarket

F i e l d
experiment

The tempo of background music influenced the

pace at which customers shopped. Slow tempo
music slowed customers down but resulted in
increased volume of sales.

Hui, Dub and

Chebat (1997)

116 Students

Bank branch
- waiting for
service.

Laboratory
experiment
Video
simulation

The positive impact of music on approach

behaviours is mediated by an emotional evaluation
of the environment and the emotional response to
waiting. Pleasurable music produced longer
perceived waiting times.

Areni and Kim

(1994)

171 Shoppers

Wine store

F i e l d
experiment

The investigation found that brighter in-store

lighting influenced shoppers to examine and handle
more of the merchandise in the store

Summers and
Hebert (2001)

2367
Customers

Hardware
store
Apparel store

F i e l d
experiment

Confirmed Areni and Kims (1994) results.

Increased levels of lighting will produce arousal
and pleasure and increase the approach behaviours
of customers.

Music

Lighting

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Summary table of literature

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Summary table of literature

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Citation styles
Information prominent citation
Example:
For viscoelastic fluids, the behavior of the timedependent stresses in the transient shear flows
is also very important (Boger et al., 1974).
Author prominent citation
Examples:
Close (1983) developed a simplified theory
using an analogy between heat and mass
transfer and the equivalent heat transfer only
case.
Several authors have suggested that
automated testing should be more readily
accepted (Balcer, 1989; Stahl, 1989; Carver &
Tai, 1991).

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Active or passive voice

You should use, where appropriate, both active
and passive voice
As a general rule, use active voice unless there is
good reason not to

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Reporting verbs

Argue
Assert
Assume
Challenge
Claim
Contend
Contradict
Describe
Dispute
Emphasize
Establish
Examine
Find
Maintain

Note
Object
Observe
Persuade
Propose
Prove
Purport
Recommend
Refute
Reject
Remark
Suggest
Support
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Verb tenses Present

A statement about what the thesis,
chapter or section does
Examples:
This thesis presents a report of an investigation into
.
This chapter thus provides a basis for the next.
In this section, the results from the first set of
experiments are reported.

A statement of a generally accepted

scientific fact

Examples:
There are three factors that control the
concentration of aluminum in seawater.
The finite rate coefficients have an effect on heat
transfer through a horizontal porous layer.

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Verb tenses Present

A review of current research work, or research
work of immediate relevance to your study.
Example:
Schulze (2002) concluded that hydraulic rate has a significant
effect on future performance.

Comments, explanations and evaluative

statements made by you when you are reviewing
previous studies.
Examples:
Therefore, this sequential approach is impractical in the real
world where projects are typically large and the activities
from one stage may be carried out in parallel with the
activities of another stage.
The reason for this anomalous result is that the tests were
done at low hydraulic rates at which the plastic packing was
not completely wetted.

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Verb tenses Past

Report the contents, findings or conclusions
of past research

Examples:
Haberfield (1998) showed that the velocity
of many enzyme reactions was slowed
down if the end product had an increased
paramagnetism.
Allington (1999) found that the
temperatures varied significantly over time.
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Verb tenses Present perfect

In citations where the focus is on the research area
of several authors
Examples:
Several studies have provided support for the
suggestion that the amount of phonological recoding
that is carried out depends on orthographic depth
(Frost, 1994; Smart et al, 1997; Katz & Feldman, 2001,
2002).
Joint roughness has been characterized by a number of
authors (Renger, 1990; Feker & Rengers, 1997; Wu &
Ali, 2000).
To generalize about the extent of the previous
research
Examples:
Many studies have been conducted in this field.
Few researchers have examined this technique.
There has been extensive research into.........

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The Writing Process

Rough Draft
Final Draft
Edit
Edit Again

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Show others
Have someone else look at your
literature review for
Clarity
Can they understand what youre trying
say?

Flow
Does the organization make sense?

Completeness
Are there areas left out?
Questions left unanswered?
Statements without citations?

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A Good Literature Review is:

Focused - The topic should be narrow. You should only
present ideas and only report on studies that are closely
related to topic.
Concise - Ideas should be presented economically. Dont
take any more space than you need to present your ideas.
Logical - The flow within and among paragraphs should be
a smooth, logical progression from one idea to the next
Developed - Dont leave the story half told.
Integrative - Your paper should stress how the ideas in
the studies are related. Focus on the big picture. What
commonality do all the studies share? How are some
studies different than others? Your paper should stress
how all the studies reviewed contribute to your topic.
Current - Your review should focus on work being done on
the cutting edge of your topic.

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A Good vs. Bad Literature Review

A good literature review..

A poor literature review is..

..
..
..
..
..

..an annotated bibliography

.. confined to description
.. narrow and shallow
.. confusing and longwinded
.. constructed in an arbitrary way

is a synthesis of available research

is a critical evaluation
has appropriate breadth and depth
has clarity and conciseness
uses rigorous and consistent methods

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Pitfalls

Vagueness due to too much or inappropriate

generalizations

Limited range

Insufficient information

Irrelevant material

Omission of contrasting view

Omission of recent work

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Common errors in
reviewing literature
Hurrying through review to get started could mean that you will
miss something that will improve your research.
Relying too heavily upon secondary sources.
Concentrating on findings rather than methods.
Overlooking sources other than academic journals. Dont forget
newspaper articles, magazines, blogs, etc.
Searching too broad or too narrow of a topic.
Inaccuracy in the compiling of bibliographic information.

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Thank you
Dr. Khairy Elsayed
kelsayed75@gmail.com

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